


Voidmoth Groundwards Floating

by ExtraPenguin



Category: Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee, 镇魂 | Guardian (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Language Barrier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 07:48:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20327623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/pseuds/ExtraPenguin
Summary: After the events of "Glass Cannon", Cheris and Jedao go visit a world with interesting scan formants.





	Voidmoth Groundwards Floating

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowersforgraves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforgraves/gifts).

> For Undisclosed Fandom, fulfils the tags: a fic no one but you will like, a fic you haven’t written because a worldbuilding quandary, a snippet of a fic you’ve wanted to write but get intimidated by how long it will be, fic in a fandom you desperately wish someone had requested, and the excellent tag of Surprise Me (Anything goes.
> 
> SPOILERS for the Machineries of Empires series through Glass Cannon. Should not have any major spoilers for Guardian; set sometime after episode 15.

"That planet has unusual scan formants on it," Cheris said. She carefully observed Jedao's reactions.

Jedao stared out into the distance as if he could see out beyond the needlemoth's walls with his eyes. Hell, perhaps that was how he conceptualized it. "Yes," he eventually said. "They look like moths. *Harmony* agrees, and adds that they're about my size."

An entire world of Nirai Kujen's prototypes, here beyond the far edges of the Hexarchate and indeed known space? Or perhaps it was a natural phenomenon from which he'd drawn inspiration? In any case, it would have to be investigated. Jedao, *Harmony*, and 1491625 concurred.

The planet wasn't in any known calendrical zone. While 1491625 coolly announced that the planet's atmosphere was human-breathable, Cheris ran some calculations. Interestingly, it seemed moths could generate exotic effects under the local calendar, and much more readily than humans, too.

Zhao Yunlan drove the Jeep to a location reasonably near the so-called alien invasion and parked it at the side of the road. So far, the aliens had stayed in their spaceship and emitted what Lin Jing informed him was a wide variety of types of signal, which were most likely in a variety of languages. On the assumption that anything they could send, they could receive, Zhao Yunlan had ordered Lin Jing to send them some prime numbers or something to prove that they were intelligent sentients, as the handbook of first contact said.

He and Shen Wei started walking. "I wish you didn't insist on taking this risk," Shen Wei said.

"I'm the Chief of the Special Investigations Department; since I'm in charge of dealing with Dixingians, and you're technically aliens, I get placed in charge of dealing with aliens." He shrugged and then winked at Shen Wei. "Besides, I have the best getaway vehicle!"

The aforementioned getaway vehicle sighed long-sufferingly and marched faster. He didn't even look back to see if Zhao Yunlan kept up.

After a few more minutes of walking, they arrived at the neat forest clearing. It had been there prior to the spaceship's arrival and had sustained minimal damage to the plant cover – perhaps the spaceship ran on Dixing powers?

The door opened and two people stepped out. One was a shortish man, the other a shortish woman. Zhao Yunlan easily towered over both of them.

"Hi!" he said and waved. Shen Wei glared at him.

The man and woman waved back. Then they started speaking to him in what were obviously several different languages that a human mouth and vocal tract could easily generate, but he couldn't understand any of them. Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei tried the few languages they knew, but the visitors didn't understand them, either.

"Well, at least they're willing to communicate," Zhao Yunlan said to Shen Wei as an aside while the visitors conferred amongst themselves.

"If only I'd learned a power that let me understand any language there was," Shen Wei muttered.

In the corner of Zhao Yunlan's eye, the visitors turned to consider Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan again. He gave a reassuring pat to Shen Wei's shoulder and looked forward to seeing what the visitors had come up with.

The woman looked at the man. He did something with – his mind, it must be – and Shen Wei scrambled backwards as if punched, clutching his head, hoarsely shouting "What? What?"

The man said something that was probably an apology. He certainly looked apologetic.

Much later, after more language lessons than Zhao Yunlan had ever wanted to deal with, he learned that Shen Wei and all Dixingians were in actuality descended from spacefaring "voidmoths" that had for some reason decided to putz about planetside, that Dixing powers were in fact due to something called "exotics" based on something called a "calendar", which might have either explained the patchwork assortment of time zones of Haixing or made that even more inexplicable, and entirely too much about a polity called the Hexarchate, remembrances, and calendrical warfare. Maybe, just maybe, he could kick this whole mess upstairs, except that upstairs might not necessarily handle it well.

Zhao Yunlan sighed and stared at his mug of coffee, the tenth today. If only Cheris and Jedao had brought some more efficient headache cure with them when they came.

**Author's Note:**

> The worldbuilding quandary is how to reconcile voidmoths with Dixingians, who can canonically reproduce with humans. Maybe it's a calendrical effect? *g*


End file.
